“I don’t know. Because you seem lonely and I’m lonely. And I thought—”

“You didn’t think.”

“Why are you so mean?”

“Why are you always watching me?”

My lips parted to speak, but no reply came to mind. We stared at each other, so close that our bodies were almost linked, so close that our lips were almost touching.

“Everyone in this town is afraid of me. Do I scare you, Elizabeth?” he whispered, his breaths brushing against my lips.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I see you.”

The coldness in his stare softened for a split second, almost as if he was confused by those four words. But I did see him. I saw past the hate in his stare and noticed the hurt in his frown. I saw the broken parts that somehow matched my own.

Without thought, Tristan pulled me to his body, his lips pressing hard against mine. The confusion swimming around in my head began to fade as his tongue slipped between my lips and I kissed him back. I kissed him back, and maybe even kissed him more than he kissed me. God, I missed that. I missed kissing. The feeling of falling into someone who was holding you up from hitting rock bottom. The feeling of warmth washing against your skin as another person supplied you with your next few breaths.

I missed being held, I missed being touched, I missed being wanted…

I missed Steven.

Tristan’s kisses were angry and sad, apologetic and agonizing, raw and authentic.

Just like mine.

My tongue slid across his bottom lip, and I pressed my hands against his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeats flying through my fingertips—flying into my own body.

For a few seconds, I felt like I had felt before.

Whole.

Complete.

A part of something divine.

Tristan hastily yanked his mouth away from mine and turned away, leading me back to my current, dark reality.

Broken.

Incomplete.

Lonely all the time.

“You don’t know me, so stop acting like you do,” he said. He started walking again, leaving me standing, perplexed.

What was that?!

“You felt it too, didn’t you?” I asked, watching him walk away. “It felt like…it felt like they were still here. It felt like Steven was here. Did it feel like your wife—”

He turned with a fire burning in his stare. “Don’t ever speak about my wife as if you know anything about her or me.” He began to hurry away once again.

He felt it.

I knew he did.

“You can’t…you can’t just walk away, Tristan. We can talk to each other. About them. We can help each other remember.” My biggest fear ever was the idea of forgetting.

He kept walking.

I hurried beside him once more. “Besides, that’s the point of becoming someone’s friend. To get to know them. To have someone to talk to.” My chest was rapidly rising and falling as I became more and more upset with him for walking away in the midst of our conversation. In the midst of the most painful and satisfying kiss my lips had ever experienced. He was helping me remember what it had been like to feel happy, and I hated him for walking away. I hated him for taking that small moment of lust that faintly reminded me of the love that had been taken away from me. “God. Why do you have to be such a…such a…monster?!”

He turned to me, and a split second of misery tinged his eyes before his jaw and his facial expression hardened. “I don’t want you, Elizabeth.” He tossed his hands up in frustration and stepped toward me. “I don’t want anything to do with you.” He stepped closer. I stepped back. “I don’t want to talk to you about your fucking dead husband.” Another step closer. “I don’t want to tell you shit about my dead wife.” Step, step. Back, back. “I don’t want to touch you.” Closer. Backward. “I don’t want to kiss you.” Step. “I don’t want to lick you.” Back. Back. Step. Step. “And I damn sure don’t want to be your fucking friend. So leave me alone and just shut the hell up!” he hollered, standing over me, his voice rocketing from his mouth like a clap of thunder, making me jump with fright.

As I took one final step backward, the heel of my shoe skidded over a rock, causing me to tumble down the hill. Every bump and thump was felt throughout my body the whole way down. Minus a few bruises and a ton of embarrassment, I was fine.

Tristan was standing over me within an instant. “Shit,” he muttered. “Are you okay? Here,” he said, reaching his hand out to me.

I refused his offer and stood on my own. His eyes were filled with concern, but I didn’t care. They would probably be filled with hate within a moment’s time.

Seconds before the fall, he had told me to shut up, so that was exactly what I’d do. I gave him exactly what he wanted. I limped back home in silence, not once looking his way, even though I could see his pathetic stare out of the corner of my eye.

“He pushed you down a hill?!” Faye shouted into the phone. The moment I’d returned from my interaction with Tristan, I’d called her. I needed my best friend to tell me that no matter what, I was right and Tristan was wrong.

Even if I had called him a monster.

“Well, not exactly. He yelled at me, and I kind of tripped.”

“After he kissed you?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh. I hate him. I hate him so much.”

I nodded. “I hate him too.”